One type of emergency life-preserving equipment is an inflatable safety system configured to inflate a chamber in response to an emergency event such as an impact or a potential impact. For example, automobile driver inflatable safety systems are designed to automatically inflate a chamber over the steering wheel in response to an impact between the automobile and another object so as to protect the driver from forceful impact with interior structures of the automobile. Likewise, avalanche inflatable safety systems are designed to manually inflate a chamber adjacent to the user in response to the user's triggering of an inflation mechanism. Inflatable safety systems generally include an inflatable chamber, an activation system, and an inflation system. The inflatable chamber is designed to expand from a compressed state to an inflated state so as to cushion the user or dampen potential impact. The inflatable chamber may also be used to encourage the user to elevate over a particular surface. The elevation of the inflatable chamber is achieved by the concept of inverse segregation, in which larger volume particles are sorted towards the top of a suspension of various sized particles in motion. The activation system enables manual or automatic activation of the inflation system. The inflation system transmits a fluid such as a gas into the inflatable chamber, thus increasing the internal pressure within the inflatable chamber and thereby transitioning the inflatable chamber from the compressed state to the inflated state.
Unfortunately, conventional inflatable avalanche safety systems fail to provide an efficient deflation procedure of the inflatable chamber. In various situations, it is necessary to deflate the inflatable chamber for both user safety and efficient operation. For example, if the system is mistakenly deployed or a burial has been avoided, the inflatable chamber should be deflated to allow the user to resume activity and/or evacuation. Likewise, if the user is buried, deflating the inflatable chamber will provide the user with more room to move and thereby potentially be more easily extricated from the snow. Conventional inflatable safety systems utilize various selective manual deflation configurations of the internal chamber. Selective manual deflation configurations may include one or more openings or channels to the internal region of the inflatable chamber, which must be manually opened by the user to cause deflation. Selective manual deflation configurations therefore require the user to perform some form of manual operation to deflate the inflatable chamber, which may not be possible in a limited mobility burial scenario.
Therefore, there is a need in the industry for an efficient and reliable inflatable avalanche safety system that overcomes the problems with conventional systems.